Polish-Lithuanian (adjective) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Polish-Lithuanian individuals and groups are those with histories in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...

. This federation, formally established by the 1569 Union of Lublin

Union of Lublin

The Union of Lublin replaced the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy, since Sigismund II Augustus, the last of the Jagiellons, remained childless after three marriages. In addition, the autonomy of Royal Prussia was...

between the Kingdom of Poland

Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569)

The Kingdom of Poland of the Jagiellons was the Polish state created by the accession of Jogaila , Grand Duke of Lithuania, to the Polish throne in 1386. The Union of Krewo or Krėva Act, united Poland and Lithuania under the rule of a single monarch...

and Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...

, created a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state founded on the binding powers of national identity

National identity

National identity is the person's identity and sense of belonging to one state or to one nation, a feeling one shares with a group of people, regardless of one's citizenship status....

and shared culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

rather than ethnicity or religious affiliation

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

. The adjectival term Polish-Lithuanian has been used to describe groups residing in the Commonwealth that did not share the Polish or Lithuanian ethnicity nor their pre-dominant Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

(Roman Catholic) faith.

Many famous figures from Lithuanian and Polish history, such as Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

, Józef Piłsudski, and Czesław Miłosz, identified themselves with this Polish-Lithuanian, multicultural, identity.

The usage of "Polish-Lithuanian" in this context can be potentially confusing, particularly as the term is often abbreviated to just "Polish", or misinterpreted at being a simple mix of the 20th century nationalistic usage of the term Polish and Lithuanian.

16th-18th centuries

Self-identifications during the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

often made use of the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

'gens

Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...

-natione' construct (familial or ethnic origin combined with a national identity). The construct was used by the elite inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

, by the Ruthenian

Ruthenians

The name Ruthenian |Rus']]) is a culturally loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is used. Initially, it was the ethnonym used for the East Slavic peoples who lived in Rus'. Later it was used predominantly for Ukrainians...

(Ukrainian and Belarusian) elites, and in Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

. Religious affiliation was sometimes added, leading to self-identifications such as Natione Polonus, gente Ruthenus; Natione Polonus, gente Prussicus; or Natione Polonus, gente Ruthenus, origine Judaeus. The Latin phrasing reflects its widespread usage as a lingua franca

Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...

that was both neutral and dead.

The Commonwealth’s nobility (Szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...

) were also bound together during this era by a widespread belief in Sarmatism

Sarmatism

"Sarmatism" is a term designating the dominant lifestyle, culture and ideology of the szlachta of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Together with "Golden Liberty," it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture...

that transcended ethnic identifications. This origin myth posited that the Commonwealth’s noble class stemmed from a group of warriors from Scythia

Scythia

In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...

, that its members were racially distinct from and superior to the other inhabitants of the area, and that various features of the Commonwealth displayed its superiority. Lithuanian, Prussian, and Livonian

Livonian people

The Livonians or Livs are the indigenous inhabitants of Livonia, a large part of what is today northwestern Latvia and southwestern Estonia. They spoke the Uralic Livonian language, a language which is closely related to Estonian and Finnish...

elites were considered Sarmatian as well as Poles. The Ruthenian nobility of the Commonwealth subscribed to Sarmatism to some extent as well, as part of a Sarmatian branch known as “Roxolanians.”

Similarly, non-noble inhabitants saw no contradiction in describing themselves as "a Pole, and a Lithuanian as well."

The Lublin Union of 1569 initiated voluntary Polonization

Polonization

Polonization was the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, in particular, Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland...

of the Lithuanian upper classes, including an increasing use of the Polish language

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, although they retained a strong sense of Lithuanian identity. Those who identified themselves as gente Lithuanus, natione Polonus ("a Lithuanian person of the Polish nation") were distinguished by their accent, customs, and cuisine, and did not perceive the categories as mutually exclusive. A diminishing portion of Lithuanian nobility and most of the rural population in the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

continued to use the Lithuanian language

Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

, especially in Samogitia

Samogitia

Samogitia is one of the five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. It is located in northwestern Lithuania. Its largest city is Šiauliai/Šiaulē. The region has a long and distinct cultural history, reflected in the existence of the Samogitian dialect...

, a practice that reached its nadir

Nadir

The nadir is the direction pointing directly below a particular location; that is, it is one of two vertical directions at a specified location, orthogonal to a horizontal flat surface there. Since the concept of being below is itself somewhat vague, scientists define the nadir in more rigorous...

in the 18th century, and increased during the 19th-century Lithuanian National Revival

Lithuanian National Revival

Lithuanian National Revival, alternatively Lithuanian National Awakening , was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century at the time when a major part of Lithuanian inhabited areas belonged to the Russian Empire...

. Till the Revival, Lithuanian language had no agreed upon written form and no significant literature, and was rarely heard in the Grand Duchy's capital of Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

(Wilno).

The adjectival term Polish-Lithuanian has been used to describe groups residing in the Commonwealth that did not share the Polish or Lithuanian ethnicity nor their pre-dominant Christian

Christian

(Roman Catholic) faith, for example in description of the Lipka Tatars

Lipka Tatars

The Lipka Tatars are a group of Tatars who originally settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the beginning of 14th century. The first settlers tried to preserve their shamanistic religion and sought asylum amongst the non-Christian Lithuanians...

, a Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

community, and a significant Jewish community,. Orthodox and Uniate communities also played a role in the Commonwealth's history.

German minority

German minority in Poland

The registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people, according to a 2002 census.The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodeship , where most of the minority resides...

, heavily represented in the towns (burghers), particularly in the Royal Prussia

Royal Prussia

Royal Prussia was a Region of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth . Polish Prussia included Pomerelia, Chełmno Land , Malbork Voivodeship , Gdańsk , Toruń , and Elbląg . It is distinguished from Ducal Prussia...

region, was another group with ties to that culture ("Natione Polonus-gente Prussicus"), with Nicholaus Copernicus being one of the most famous individuals who could be seen in that light. Many Prussians from that region identified themselves not as Germans nor Poles, but as the citizens of the multicultural Commonwealth.

19th and 20th centuries

The Commonwealth ceased to exist after the late 18th century Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

and Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

achieved independence as separate nations after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The development of nationalism through the Lithuanian National Revival

Lithuanian National Revival

was a crucial factor that led to the separation of the modern Lithuanian state from Poland; similar movements took hold in Ukraine

Ukrainian nationalism

Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukrainian version of nationalism.Although the current Ukrainian state emerged fairly recently, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Orest Subtelny and Paul Magosci have cited the medieval state of Kievan Rus' as an early precedents of specifically...

and later in Belarus (the territories of both modern countries had formerly been part of the Commonwealth, but did not achieve independence until after the late 20th-century collapse of the Soviet Union). Lithuanian nationalism was a reaction to both the Russification

Russification

Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...

in the Russian partition

Russian partition

The Russian partition was the former territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that were acquired by the Russian Empire in the late-18th-century Partitions of Poland.-Terminology:...

, and to the threat of further Polonization

Polonization

due to the pressure of Polish culture. The Lithuanian nationalist desire to be separate from Poland was exemplified for example in the adoption of the Czech alphabet

Czech alphabet

The Czech alphabet is a version of the Latin script, used when writing Czech. Its basic principles are "one sound, one letter" and the addition of diacritical marks above letters to represent sounds alien to Latin...

over the Polish one

Polish alphabet

The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography . It is based on the Latin alphabet, but includes certain letters with diacritics: the line or kreska, which is graphically similar to an acute accent ; the overdot or kropka ; the tail or...

for the Lithuanian alphabet

Lithuanian alphabet

Lithuanian employs a modified Roman script. It is composed of 32 letters. The collation order presents one surprise: "Y" is moved to occur between I Ogonek and J....

. The old cultural identities lost the fight to the more attractive ethnic, religious and linguistic-based ones. Following the abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire in 1861

Emancipation reform of 1861

The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia was the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign of Alexander II of Russia. The reform, together with a related reform in 1861, amounted to the liquidation of serf dependence previously suffered by peasants of the Russian Empire...

, social mobility

Social mobility

Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...

increased, and Lithuanian intellectuals arose from the ranks of the rural populace; language became associated with identity in Lithuania, as elsewhere across Europe.

The dual identity maintained by many leading figures of Polish-Lithuanian history, the gente Lithuanus, natione Polonus attitude still popular in the early 19th century, was increasingly less feasible as the century pressed ahead. The leaders of the unsuccessful January Uprising

January Uprising

The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...

of 1863-1865 invoked the former commonalities, appealing to “Brother Ruthenians and Lithuanians” and to “Brothers of the Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion.” The peasants in the region were largely unmoved, since they had never shared the constructed national identity of the elites.

A group of individuals who tried to maintain the dual identity during that period was called the krajowcy

Krajowcy

The Krajowcy was a group of mainly Polish-speaking intellectuals from the Vilnius Region who, in the beginning of the 20th century, opposed the division of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth into nation states along ethnic and linguistic lines. It was a reactionary movement against growing...

. Their political program, as well as Piłsudski's idea of a Polish-led federation re-creating the Commonwealth (Międzymorze

Miedzymorze

Międzymorze was a plan, pursued after World War I by Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, for a federation, under Poland's aegis, of Central and Eastern European countries...

), became a failure. An analogy can be drawn here with regards to the split between Finnish and Swedish culture (see Finnish Declaration of Independence).

The gulf between those who chose to use Polish and those who chose to use Lithuanian was growing, and both groups begun to see the very history of the Commonwealth in different light. Events such as the Polish-Lithuanian War

Polish-Lithuanian War

The Polish–Lithuanian War was an armed conflict between newly independent Lithuania and Poland in the aftermath of World War I. The conflict primarily concerned territorial control of the Vilnius Region, including Vilnius , and the Suwałki Region, including the towns of Suwałki, Augustów, and Sejny...

, the 1919 Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania

1919 Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania

The Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania refers to a failed attempt by Józef Piłsudski to overthrow the existing government of Lithuania, led by Prime Minister Mykolas Sleževičius, and install a more pro-Polish cabinet that would agree to a union with Poland. The coup d'etat was to be carried...

, and the conflict over Vilnius (Wilno) Region

Vilnius region

Vilnius Region , refers to the territory in the present day Lithuania, that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time,...

led to major tensions in the interwar Polish-Lithuanian relations.

Tomas Venclova

Tomas Venclova

Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian scholar, poet, author and translator of literature.Tomas Venclova is son of poet and Soviet politician Antanas Venclova. He was educated at Vilnius University. As an active participant in the dissident movement he was deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1977 and had...

differentiated at one point between for different meanings of a "Lithuanian person". The changing definition of the words in that period can be illustrated with the following example:
Józef Piłsudski, an important interwar Polish politician, significantly responsible for Poland's regained independence in the aftermath of World War I

Aftermath of World War I

The fighting in World War I ended in western Europe when the Armistice took effect at 11:00 am GMT on November 11, 1918, and in eastern Europe by the early 1920s. During and in the aftermath of the war the political, cultural, and social order was drastically changed in Europe, Asia and Africa,...

, planner of the 1919 Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania

1919 Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania

and orchestrator of the Żeligowski's Mutiny

Zeligowski's Mutiny

Żeligowski's Mutiny was a sham mutiny led by Polish General Lucjan Żeligowski in October 1920, which resulted in the creation of the short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania. Polish Chief of State Józef Piłsudski had surreptitiously ordered Żeligowski to carry out the operation, and revealed the...

that brought the disputed Vilnius Region

Vilnius region

into Poland, often drew attention to his Lithuanian ancestry, and briefly pursued the re-creation of the old Commonwealth. In light of the other great plan for post-World War I order, the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

intention to spread the communist revolution through the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

, his goal of re-constituting the Commonwealth "could only be achieved by war." Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. With the collapse of Russian and German occupying authorities

Ober Ost

Ober Ost is short for Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten, which is a German term meaning "Supreme Commander of All German Forces in the East" during World War I. In practice it refers not only to said commander, but also to his governing military staff and the district...

, virtually all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders: Romania

Kingdom of Romania

The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...

fought with Hungary

Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919

The seeds of the Hungarian–Romanian war of 1919 were planted when the union of Transylvania with Romania was proclaimed, on December 1, 1918. In late March 1919, the Bolsheviks came to power in Hungary, at which point its army attempted to retake Transylvania, commencing the war. By its final...

over Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

, Yugoslavia

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

with Italy over Rijeka

Free State of Fiume

The Free State of Fiume was an independent free state which existed between 1920 and 1924. Its territory of comprised the city of Fiume and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy.-History:Fiume gained autonomy for the first time in 1719 when it was proclaimed...

, Poland with Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

over Cieszyn Silesia

Cieszyn Silesia

Cieszyn Silesia or Těšín Silesia or Teschen Silesia is a historical region in south-eastern Silesia, centered around the towns of Cieszyn and Český Těšín and bisected by the Olza River. Since 1920 it has been divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic...

, with Germany

Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919)

The Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–1919, or Wielkopolska Uprising of 1918–1919 or Posnanian War was a military insurrection of Poles in the Greater Poland region against Germany...

over Poznań

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

, with Ukrainians over Eastern Galicia, with Lithuanians

Polish–Lithuanian War

over Vilnius Region

Vilnius region

. Ukrainians

Ukrainian People's Republic

The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...

, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians fought against each other and against the Russians, who were just as divided

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

. Spreading Communist influences resulted in Communist revolution

Communist revolution

A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...

s in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

and Prešov

Prešov

Prešov Historically, the city has been known in German as Eperies , Eperjes in Hungarian, Fragopolis in Latin, Preszów in Polish, Peryeshis in Romany, Пряшев in Russian and Пряшів in Rusyn and Ukrainian.-Characteristics:The city is a showcase of Baroque, Rococo and Gothic...

, and finally, in the Polish-Soviet War

Polish-Soviet War

The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...

. Speaking of that period, Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

commented: "The war of giants

World War I

has ended, the wars of the pygmies began." Eventually, the bad blood created but those conflicts, and the staunch opposition by (primarily) Polish and Lithuanian nationalists towards the federatio idea, and finally the Peace of Riga

Peace of Riga

The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga; was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, between Poland, Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish-Soviet War....

, in which Poland abandoned the Belorusian and Ukrainian independence cause, would doom the idea of the Międzymorze

Miedzymorze

Międzymorze was a plan, pursued after World War I by Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, for a federation, under Poland's aegis, of Central and Eastern European countries...

federation. The failure to create a strong counterbalance to Germany and Soviet Union, such as Międzymorze, which Piłsudski saw as a counterweight to Russian and German imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

, according to some historians, doomed those countries to their eventual fate as victims

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin is a book written by Timothy D. Snyder, first published by Basic Books on October 28, 2010. The book is about the mass killing of an estimated 14 million non-combatants by the regimes of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany...

of the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. In another contradiction of that times, as some Poles and Ukrainians, pursuing the Polish-Ukrainian alliance even after Riga worked together to liberate Soviet Ukraine and restore Ukrainian independence

Prometheism

Prometheism or Prometheanism was a political project initiated by Poland's Józef Piłsudski. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the...

, and some Belarussian and Ukrainian peasants hoped for a new Polish-Soviet war that would bring them freedom, actions of radical Ukrainian nationalists

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...

within Poland contributed to brutal reprisals and a growing cycle of violence

Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia (1930)

Pacification of Ukrainians refers to the punitive action by police and military of the Second Polish Republic against the Ukrainian minority in Poland in September–November 1930 in response to a wave of more than 2,200 acts of sabotage against Polish property in the region...

.

The Nobel Prize-winning poet Czesław Miłosz often wrote of his dual Polish and Lithuanian identities. Anatol Lieven

Anatol Lieven

Peter Paul Anatol Lieven is a British author, journalist, and policy analyst. He is presently a Senior Researcher at the New America Foundation, where he focuses on US global strategy and the War on Terrorism, Associated Scholar of the Transnational Crisis Project, Chair of International...

lists Miłosz among "great Polish figures", at the same time noting he is referred to as "one of the last citizens of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania", and that his use of the word "Lithuanian" was "very different from the mono-ethnic vision of many Lithuanian nationalists". Miłosz himself compared the situation of Polish Lithuanians in the 19th century to that of educated Scots such as Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

, whose works, while written in English rather than Gaelic, were centered on Scots characters and traditions. Anatol Lieven makes a counterpoint by describing Scottish aspirations to independence as essentially crushed at the 1746 Battle of Culloden

Battle of Culloden

The Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Taking place on 16 April 1746, the battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government...

, which in his view made Scott's path less difficult, and sees pre-1939 Polish-Lithuanian culture as a combination of romantic idealization of medieval Lithuania and contempt for modern Lithuanians. Similarly, he states: "For educated Poles before the Second World War, Lithuania was not a nation but an assemblage of peasants speaking a peculiar dialect", an attitude that further served to alienate the new Lithuanian intelligentsia

Intelligentsia

The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...

Modern usage

The use of the expressions "Polish-Lithuanian," "Polonized Lithuanian," and "Pole of Lithuanian descent" persists in recent biographical descriptions of the Radziwill family and in those of several notable 19th and 20th-century figures such as Emilia Plater

Emilia Plater

Countess Emilia Plater was a Polish-Lithuanian noblewoman and revolutionary from the lands of the partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...

, Józef Piłsudski, Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

, Czesław Miłosz, and Gabriel Narutowicz

Gabriel Narutowicz

Gabriel Narutowicz was a Lithuanian-born professor of hydroelectric engineering at Switzerland's Zurich Polytechnic, and Poland's Minister of Public Works , Minister of Foreign Affairs , and the first president of the Second Polish Republic....

, among others. At the same time, other sources simply use the word "Polish", just as the word "Poland" is used to refer to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth itself. The usage of the term "Polish" transcends but does not replace the word "Lithuanian", as it was similar to the usage of the term "British" to refer to the British Commonwealth, comprising the English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

, Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

and Welsh

Welsh people

The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

parts; however as a different term was not used in the English language, the result can be confusing at times. An analogy has also been drawn between the use of Polish-Lithuanian and that of Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

as adjectives. Crucially, the pre-nationalistic usage of "Polish-Lithuanian" refers to (shared) culture

Culture

, whereas the more modern, nationalistic usage of "Polish" and "Lithuanian" refers to ethnicity.

Lithuania and Poland continue to dispute the origins of some cultural icons with roots in both cultures who are described in their national discourses as Polish-Lithuanian, as simply Polish, or as simply Lithuanian. The poet Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

is an examplar of the controversy.

Today's Republic of Poland considers itself a successor to the Commonwealth, and stresses the common history of both nations, whereas the Republic of Lithuania, re-established at the end of World War I

World War I

, saw the participation of the Lithuanian state in the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth mostly in a negative light and idealized the pre-Commonwealth Duchy although this attitude has been changing recently. Modern Polish-Lithuanian relations have improved, but their respective views of history can still differ. Ukrainians and Belarusians have a less favorable memory of the era.

16th-18th centuries

19th and 20th centuries

Modern usage

See also